Kansas City weather: Tracking rain chances this week

It’s a chilly start out there this morning with patchy frost in some areas, especially northeast of the metro and temperatures dropping into the 20s in the outskirts of the region. Skies are nice and sunny though and we should see a nice warm-up this afternoon into the 70s.

There are two rain chances showing up for the Kansas City metro. One is sort of sketchy and the other is more likely.

We need it. Since August 14th we’ve officially had 1.05″ of rain at KCI…that’s almost 2 months worth of time…and that isn’t a lot of moisture. Ironically the day before that we had record rains of almost 3″ on the 13th. So Mother Nature has certainly shut off the spigot since then.

The main chance of rain will be late Thursday night into Friday early morning. After that another decently long stretch of dry weather may be setting up again for the region.

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One sentence forecast: There will be lots of mild sunshine today with some scattered showers/sprinkles possible later tonight after 8PM.

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Forecast:

Today: Sunny and milder with highs 70-75°

Tonight: A small chance of some showers/sprinkles after 8PM, especially from KC northeastwards. Lows in the 50s

Tomorrow: Partly cloudy and windy. Warmer too with highs into the lower 80s

Thursday: About the same with highs into the lower 80s. Hopefully the rains hold off till after the game.

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Discussion:

A strong storm is going to change our weather over the course of the next 5 days or so. We’ll be on the front side of the storm Wednesday and Thursday and on the back side of the storm (the colder side) after that.

This is probably the 1st strong Plains storm of the season. Strong enough that snow is likely in the mountains of CO and WY heading into the end of the week and perhaps even the western Dakotas. So yes this storm means business.

For us we will see the moisture increase beginning tomorrow to some extent and certainly on Thursday. Dew points which are in the 30s today will end up into the lower 60s before a cold front comes into the region later Thursday night or Friday morning.

This front will usher in the blustery and colder weather starting Friday and that will likely linger through the weekend because clouds are also going to be a factor in keeping the chill locked in on Saturday it appears. Eclipse watchers take note…clouds may be an issue on Saturday.

So the storm this morning is the coast of British Columbia.

This storm will move into the western US and then strengthen into the Plains heading into the end of the week. You can see that as we go up to about 18,000 feet or so. A good way to track this features into the atmosphere.

For timing purposes…12Z is 7AM….18Z is 1PM…00Z is 7PM and 06Z is 1AM

This storm at the surface will develop a strong surface low. This will help to bring down colder air on the backside of the storm and suck up warmer air on the front side of the storm. As the surface storm strengthens, by Thursday morning we got something like this set-up

That warm air will be with us all day but as the surface low strengthens the winds will be increasing…and 15-25 MPH gusts are possible tomorrow and 20-35 MPH gusts are possible on Thursday.

The cold front on this will move through sometime Friday morning. Then the chillier air wraps in behind the front…so whatever we are at 12AM or so Friday morning may be the high temperature for the day.

Before we get to all that though there should be at least some rain. The 1st chance arrives later this evening but for the Metro the chances are iffy at best it appears.

The lower part of the atmosphere is pretty dry and the atmosphere overall is pretty dry too today so I ‘m not too confident that things will moisten up enough locally to get rain here. The chance is there but perhaps things may come together a bit more with some extra atmospheric lift towards the northeast of the Metro overnight tonight.

Tomorrow I don’t expect rain and most of Thursday is dry locally although northern MO may have lingering storms and rains at least in the morning on Thursday.

The key for the Metro rain chances is the cold front that will be approaching later Thursday night or Friday morning. Storms are likely to develop with the front Thursday evening out towards the west of the region and rapidly move toward the ENE and NE aided by strong winds aloft. These storms may be strong to severe out west and perhaps towards the NW of the Metro Thursday night.

The SPC has a level 2 risk of severe weather on the KS side…and what develops out there potentially will weaken to some degree the later into the night we go as the activity moves towards the east and northeast.

The main risk of severe storms may be near and west of Topeka and into NE KS and NW MO with strong winds and perhaps some hail possible but the later into the night we go the lower the overall risk is for KC. I’m still not convinced this is going to be a big rain for the Metro.

The front timing isn’t so great…holding off till Friday morning or so…so as the storms form out west Thursday night and come off the front…I’m not sure how strong they’re going to be when they zip through our region.

Behind the storm colder air with gusty winds will whip into the region on Friday into Friday night.

This should help create lots of low clouds and those clouds may be persistent into Saturday and that is an issue because of the annular eclipse that I wrote about yesterday. I still am concerned that these clouds may linger through the eclipse on Saturday.

Right now off the EURO ensembles the probabilities of cloud cover over 90% are running close to 70%

The GFS ensembles are slightly more encouraging…running around 40% for at least 75% coverage.

A reminder that this WILL NOT be the same type of eclipse locally as what happened in 2017. While you SHOULD NOT look at this directly with a naked eye, the set up for KC is that roughly 60% of the sun will be blocked by the moon.